Sheathe your swords, holster your guns, soothe your beasts, and come to the table – it is time to discuss the elephant in the realm. Will One D&D rule them all?

Since its announcement from Wizards of the Coast, One D&D has been a hot topic for all D&D enthusiasts. Moving on from 5^th edition will be a challenge of note, as the general consensus in the D&D community seems to be that 5e  is here to stay. In an insightful move from the WoTC; likely inspired by the success achieved in listening to the player community when they first brought 5e to life, they have announced that One D&D will be fully backwards compatible with previous editions. What does this mean for players? Simply put, instead of replacing 5e, they have opted to evolve it by adding new content and improved mechanics to the already solid foundation.

In an effort to keep players in the loop and to receive clear feedback on potential changes, WoTC are releasing playtest content and requesting feedback from a more than willing target audience. Naturally, we jumped at the chance of playtesting the first bit of content – Unearthed Arcana Character Origins – with a typical Dum Dum Die one-shot (you know what that means).

Our thoughts on the content so far, in short? We need more! My players, true to our brand, created “interesting” characters using the new character origins. We tested the new race Ardling, the celestial equivalent of the Aasimar race with the unique flavourings of celestial legacies and animal ancestry, it was a hoot! We also tested the good old-fashioned human race that contained some really inspired changes (get it?). Playing a human will be much more tempting in One D&D than in previous editions with their extra feat and free inspiration for having had a good night’s rest. Lastly, we had a forest gnome with some lovely utility including spells like Minor Illusion and Speak with Animals. While it was a challenge putting together the characters by merging the new content with 5e, the playtest content left us wanting more. One D&D is introducing extra versatility to character creation by allowing players to change the sizes of their races, as well as adding unique and impactful background options.

For gameplay, One D&D is allowing characters to gain inspiration on rolling a natural 20. This is a pleasant change for all the DM’s out there who often forget to assign inspiration, or for players who feel that it is underused in games. To prevent it from being “game-breaking”, inspiration expires once the character takes a long rest. Hopefully, this will encourage players to make use of their inspiration on the regular. While some of the new content reads ambiguously at the moment, we believe that it will become clearer when more content becomes available. It is too early for us to know whether One D&D will gain and hold the popularity that 5^th edition has had until now, but so far, we are cautiously optimistic.

The playtest content includes several more race changes, changes to spell classification, proficiency tools, and more! There is too much content for us to test in a single session, and more is on its way. If you want to make your voice heard and have a hand in the creation of this enhanced version of D&D, make sure to playtest some of the One D&D content and fill in those surveys.

You can watch our video here: 

-Lovely Lee (aka Teddy)